Is carrier locking an America-only thing? I have never seen this in India, and have never heard of this in any European country either.

The thing that annoys me is the way virtually all of these phone models have minor variants that go undocumented in the store pages. I ordered my last phone online, after first searching to make sure it was a model that was supported by the roms I like. The store page advertised it as unlocked, and that it supports GSM. Both of these things are true, and yet it turned out to be a "Verizon" model variant (believe it supports both GSM and whatever Verizon's networks are called these days, cdsm). It sucks because this small variation casts doubt and may reduce which roms I can install (haven't gotten around to flashing one yet). And the other annoyance is that even though it does work fine with my carrier, I still get an annoying notification every time I reboot my phone that complains about the SIM not being a Verizon one even though it works just fine.

You'll be shocked to find out there is no Santa.

Verizon will tell you to fuck right off and will never unlock your device.

Will never unlock their device.

I have a Pixel 8a from Verizon, as someone else here said, they sometimes have crazy deals. This was a free one (through bill credits) for us. It was right after Google released that version and before 9. I quickly discovered that even with Google's beta program which you can FREELY USE and all it requires you to do is connect your phone via usb through the web and it patches your phone via Google's site to install it. I'm a beta testing type of person, so I was all in, until I discovered there was no way no how because of the bootloader.

Then, on top of that the, GraphineOS is not able to be installed with it locked as well. I haven't approached Verizon about unlocking the bootloader. I've heard some success stories on XDA I think it was about people getting theirs unlocked through them. (Probably if you get a tech who's in a good mood helps).

This is old news.

Verizon devices have been bootlocked since about 2011.

The OG Droid was unlocked, everything after that was bootloader locked.

I recall that they wouldn’t even let you bring your own unlocked device for a while - they remember us rooting to get free tethering when they wanted an extra $30/mo for that, greedy fucksticks

As far as I know Verizon is main carrier doing this. They've always been an absolutely horrible company.

Well the pixel 8 will be supported for quite a while, for now you've tried all the things you can but if you prevent it from updating maybe they'll publically patch an exploit you can use to gain root. I think Verizon in particular does this because they eat a lot of the cost for the phone and lock you into using their network, they want that cost recouped but since they're not legally required to unlock it after they recoup their cost they will do nothing. They should legally be required to allow bootloader unlocking after they stop supporting it but regulators are too busy inventing reasons for us poors to hate eachother.

I'm sorry you had to go through this but only ever by devices from the manufacturer and make sure that you buy them at full price and that they are not tied to a carrier when you buy them and you'll be all right.

In netherlands a sim lock is not allowed for years. Nokia had never sim locks on their phones. As far as I know, bootloader locks are done by the manufaturer not by the provider. Edit down -> done

I think the point is, if you could flash an OS, you could theoretically bypass sim locking.

Is your device already sim unlocked? Is so, you just connect to the internet with developer menu turned on, then wait (anywhere from hours to days, like let this happen in the background, it doesn't have to stay on the screen) and hope the option becomes selectable. And reboot once a day to see if the menu option changes. I had a sim locked device that had the option suddebly become available for some reason.

Why would you buy through a carrier anyway? Especially because if it's cheaper than from the manufacturer, it means that YOU are the product too. In the end, the carrier version is also much more bloated. Which in some countries/providers (eg. Etisalat) actually includes Pegasus in the official provider app.

Is it just much less common to buy a carrier device here, in germany, or do you need to be in the brainrotted part of GenZ or something for that?

I know that woot sells lots of older models of phones and they always mention when it is a Verizon phone with a locked boot loader. IDK if you get a price break for those.

I'm actually thinking of buying a sim locked phone (those are incredibly cheap up front, since they then expect to sell you an overpriced mobile plan) and using it without a sim (wifi only) as a secondary device for various purposes. I don't know if this idea works though.

I've always viewed locked devices as bad news oof I always buy phones from Amazon. I considered rooting just to change the font but it seems like a lot of effort considering I use Google pay & stuff. I know no one asked